


The Greatest Gift(s)

by LunaDeSangre



Series: Infinite Possibilities [9]
Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Gen, Oz Magi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaDeSangre/pseuds/LunaDeSangre
Summary: "The spirit of Christmas doesn't have to be limited to the season," Miguel says indolently, studying the board and moving his rook—unable to suppress a crooked grin.





	The Greatest Gift(s)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Titti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titti/gifts).



> Oz Magi 2017, Wish # 10, Request 1:  
> Pairing/Character(s): Miguel/Ryan  
> Keyword/Prompt Phrase: Holidays in Oz  
> Canon/AU/Either: Canon or post series  
> Special Requests: None  
> Story/Art/Either: Story
> 
> This is set in early season 5 (around the time Guerra stabs Alvarez) and canon _-ish_ : it just assumes the Alvarez/O'Reily cut scene was not a one-time thing.

Sometimes Miguel thinks he spends a bit too much time pondering the most random shit. But hey, it's not like there's ever been much else to do in solitary (besides wanking, but that's actually stupidly difficult to do when you're starting to be so lonely you're having trouble conjuring up even one attractive face in your mind). He still does it even out of there though: even having to constantly watch his back doesn't alleviate the never-ending boredom that is life in prison.

So, in Em-City, he happily uses his computer time to look up the weirdest things. Because he can, because it's fun (and useful to make people think he's even more loco than he is), and because it passes the fucking time.

Seems people out there are just as bored sometimes. Miguel can see no other explanation for why some hotshot scientist living in the free world would decide to go around asking everybody what time of the year they find the most depressing.

And the answer to _that_ weird question is: _Christmas_. Huh. Miguel's never found Christmas depressing, before he was locked in here.

Now though, well, yeah, he can see the point. Though he's not sure he'd personally say that's the most depressing time of the year: his birthday is frankly just as bad, when he knows enough of the current date to realize it's coming around or has already gone by.

But yeah, he supposes if he asked any con in here, they'd all say Christmas in Oz _is_ the saddest, most depressing fucking thing. Just for the fact that they're all stuck in there with the others equally sorry fucks and the TV (and sometimes, for a few lucky assholes, a well-meaning relative or two) is so damn _cheerful_.

Personally, Miguel is of the opinion that the most depressing thing about Christmas in Oz is simply the fact that it goes by just like any other fucking day.

But hey, he contemplates—trying to flip the thought just for the fun of it—if Christmas in Oz is just like any other day, then any other day might as well be Christmas too. 'Cause it's not like it makes a difference either way: birthdays, holidays, anything that was cause for parties and presents and any kind of celebration _outside_ —they're just fucking sad reminders of their lost lives, their lost freedoms.

The only thing people celebrate in this fucking place is _death_.

Fuck, ain't that fucking cheerful. Time to find something else to focus on.

*

On the run, at some point, he'd gone to the beach. In Florida, right on the most southern shore—the one that's north of Cuba. He'd wondered if he'd be safe there, if he could manage to swim to the island his abuelos had risked everything to escape, or if they'd lock him up in a little room too, or send him back to the one he'd ran away from and still had nightmares about.

But his abuela had told him enough stories for him to know you can't swim against the current, and he wasn't stupid enough to think he could outrun (outsail?) the coastguards, if he stole a boat (and figured out how it worked somehow), that he wouldn't end up right back in Oz faster than he could blink. No, even at his most desperate, he'd known Mexico was his only way down.

Even if said only way down _did_ get him caught _anyway_ —sent straight back to Oz like some kind of unwanted, repulsive _garbage_.

But before that—before that he'd walked hours on that beach, back and forth, barefoot in the sand despite the gray cloudy sky threatening (or taunting) him with rain. Sat unmoving with the wind ruffling his clothes, ass going numb and eyes as opened as possible, engraving the sight and the sounds of those waves in his mind. The burning sunset, the sliver of crescent moon and the starry night.

He'd slept on that beach too, curled up and blinking at the milky way high up above him, shivering under the ragged blanket he'd acquired on his trip (run) down, and when he'd woken up, with the first pale rays of the sun lighting his way, he'd stripped and gone for a swim, the cold water like a second baptism, all undeserved forgiveness and unconditional purification. Birthing him anew.

He'd dried with his blanket, got dressed again, finished the last of his small water bottle gazing gratefully at everything, and walking around one last time, silently saying _goodbye_ and _wish me luck_ , before putting on his shoes and going in search of food and a ride west, he'd found a shell.

It had seemed like a blessing then. A blessing made physical—the tangible answer to everything he'd prayed for. He'd kept it, carefully, awed and thankful, like the precious gift it was—the most precious gift he'd ever been given.

Caught again, shoved and beaten around, shipped back to the place of his nightmares, by all rights it should have been lost, stolen, crushed—inadvertently or very deliberately, with a cruel laugh under a hack's foot. (Miguel dreams about it sometimes, waking up in cold sweat, frantic to reassure himself, the best he can, that reality isn't worse than the darkness living inside his mind.)

But it's still there, somehow. He still has it. And it feels like a blessing still, despite it all. Because: that tiny thing is Miguel's own little piece of freedom.

*

In Oz, you don't have friends. Not even compadres: Miguel's learnt his lesson by now—through blood, betrayal, and unforgivable maiming. There's people that look like you and people that think like you and people that look like you and think like you. That are as fucked-up as you. But no friends: friends stab you in the back (or try to, anyway), and there's enough people that'd do that just to kill time, or boredom, or just to prove something stupid, as it is.

You want friends, befriend loneliness. That's all there is.

Doesn't mean you can't have sorta-friendly talks with people not actively trying to kill you, though: loneliness ain't that good for conversations, especially when you're trying to keep the loco away. (Inwardly, anyway, 'cause outwardly it's kind of a great companion. Watches your back and all. Look at Beecher, it's working for him—mostly.) You just gotta be careful who you're having those conversations with. And what you fucking say.

But the risk's worth it, to feel like an actual human being, for a little while.

And besides, Miguel knows O'Reily too well to take anything he says at face-value.

*

His little piece of freedom is actually _really_ small, which is probably weirdly fitting. It's tiny and all gray outside—not pretty like a shell should be, and _that's_ fitting, too. Miguel figures it must have been some sort of seawater snail, with the squat conic shape it has, and maybe it got caught at the edges of a black tide or something, to be a dull shade of gray like that.

When he found it, it had seemed like such a metaphor of his life that it had made him laugh. Initially, that's why he'd picked it up.

He hadn't intended to keep it, never mind bring it with him such a long way—being _able_ to bring it such a long way, somehow perpetually unnoticed in Miguel's pocket or Miguel's hand, no matter how much rough handling Miguel's had to live through since then. But it'd rolled over in his palm, and the little glimpse of pinkish white shimmery insides had spoken to Miguel of pure, enduring things impossible to taint.

(Maybe someday, just for fun, he should ask the Padre what color blessings are. He's rather sure that'd make Mukada think Miguel's slipping on the wrong side of insanity again though.)

Miguel researches the weirdest shit, but he's never tried to find out exactly what kind of shell he keeps smuggling around. Sometimes he does think about looking it up, but then he stops himself: he knows what that little thing is to him. Who the fuck cares about scientific mumbo-jumbo—it'd take all the fascination out of it.

*

So, okay, maybe somewhere in the back of his mind, Miguel's not as sure of Guerra's word as he wants to make himself believe: it'd explain why, after speaking to the guy, he feels a rapidly mounting urge to…pass on his shell to someone who'll take care of it. Entrust it, like some kind of heirloom.

He guesses his Mama would get his things, if he died—a cardboard box of what little he's managed to hang on to, like Miguel had gotten from Groves. Or maybe his father? Or both: he can see bleeding-heart McManus, the Padre and Sister Pete, insisting to bring Eduardo and Carmen in the same room so they could share the pain as well as their son's earthly possessions. He'd be sad and resigned, she'd be sad and pissed—Miguel can see either of them keeping _his_ son's photo, but that shell? His father'd probably just be puzzled (or even more heartbroken that he always seems to be), and his mother would just snort. (She's always been the best at hiding just about any emotion under layers of tough snarkiness.)

Even if they did keep it (he's almost certain his mother, at least, wouldn't—and he doesn't know his father well enough to be sure _he_ would), neither of them would ever see it the same way Miguel does.

He knows the Padre would keep it, if Miguel gave it to him. The Sister too. But like with Miguel's father, to them it would be just a shell that Miguel must have picked up somewhere and ended up bringing with him. They'd see Miguel in it, maybe, but not _freedom_.

No, he's already known even as the thought first occurred to him that there's only one guy he can leave his little blessing to.

*

He's lucky, for once, and finds O'Reily alone in the gym again.

Really, Miguel has no idea how he can come across O'Reily alone there with this strange kind of regularity, but he's not about to complain: he likes talking about his months of stolen freedom, relive the fun or amazing parts for (and with) someone who's as starved of wild open spaces as he is, likes hearing O'Reily tell him in drier, funnier and more interesting words all that the guy gleans from those books and magazines about far away places he always seems to be inhaling during Em City's downtime. He likes trading entertaining stories and weird little facts about the now-seemingly-unreachable _outside_ and all kinds of foreign countries neither of them will realistically ever see—would probably realistically never have seen even if they hadn't ended up here. (It gives him a weird sense of belonging, even if he knows better than to trust Oz's master schemer.)

"I've got something for you," Miguel says straight off, strutting in—no hellos or anything. (Miguel's managed to notice the both of them have only ever seemed to use greetings when dealings or power plays are involved—which hasn't happened often in the years they've both been stuck here, and not at all as of late, with neither of them having anything the other wants. Which is probably the how and possibly the why of those almost-friendly talks, now that he thinks about it.)

"Awww," O'Reily drawls in lighthearted sarcasm, putting down the small weight he'd been working an arm with, "but it's not my birthday, Alvarez."

"Well then," Miguel answers cheerfully, sitting on the bench next to O'Reily's so they're facing each other and holding out the shell in his closed fist with a crooked grin, ready to drop it in O'Reily's palm, "Feliz Navidad and all that shit."

"We're nowhere _near_ Christmas either," O'Reily answers, raising both eyebrows at him and _not_ moving to take it, just sitting there with his elbows on his knees. The suspicious fuck looks a bit more skeptical with each passing second.

Miguel drops his arm and lets out a long, loud sigh just for the pleasure of feeling the weight of his own breathing. "O'Reily," he says, slow, lazy and amused, "where's your sense of fun? For all we know 'bout the world outside, it _could_ be Christmas."

"It's not," O'Reily counters, looking slightly intrigued despite himself, "it's—"

"Don't tell me," Miguel interrupts with a snort (thinking: of _course_ , trust _him_ to know the exact date—he probably knows the exact time without a watch too, like he's got some sort of supercomputer in his brain that keeps track of everything on top of calculating all the variables of everything that happens in here), "it makes no fucking difference, all the fucking days are the same." That part comes out a bit too cynical even for him, so he quickly goes on: "But today, I feel like Santa, and I have a gift." He raises the fist holding his shell a little in emphasis.

"Right," O'Reily states dryly, having apparently decided on amused, "d'you want me to find you a hat, Santa? Or a beard? Unless you're planning to let yours grow and bleach it?"

"I take it back," Miguel answers, tone purposely flat and face stony, "you're a riot."

O'Reily smirks at him, green eyes dancing, and Miguel can't help but throw a little crooked grin in response.

"When I was out," he explains, "I went to a beach. And I found this." He holds out his arm again and opens his palm, the movement making the tiny gray shell roll over slightly to show O'Reily its belly—like a minuscule pet asking to be stroked. The image makes Miguel grin again.

O'Reily _stares_ at it, smirk vanished, not moving a muscle.

"Frankly," Miguel continues, "I really don't fucking know how no hack's managed to even find it so far." He laughs a little, half still wondering, half at O'Reily's strikingly unguarded stunned face. It feels _good_ —the normal sort of good that's so impossibly rare to achieve in a hellhole like this one. "Suppose it's tiny enough to get caught at the bottom of my pockets or something."

Slight pause, with O'Reily _still_ not moving to take it.

"Anyway, it's yours now," Miguel finishes. "Call it a Christmas present?" he jokes with a small shrug, careful not to dislodge it.

There's a little flick of O'Reily's eyes up to his and back down to the shell, too fast to catch anything, and no further movement. Or sound.

Miguel doesn't let the stillness deter him—doesn't even let himself think about it. "Besides," he's arguing, filling the silence, "y'know, with Guerra and the rest of El Norte gunning for me and all, I ain't gonna be here long, and if I die, I don't want nobody crushing this thing. Take it," he insists, far too seriously and far too honestly—too quietly too. "I got nobody else to leave it to."

Slowly, without looking at him, O'Reily does just that, laying it carefully in the palm of his other hand. The _warmth_ that the gentle brush of O'Reily's fingertips leave on the skin of Miguel's hand nearly makes him shudder: you can leave solitary confinement, but its dull gray, heat-leeching walls, all frosty loneliness and glacial despair—they never leave you.

There's a longer pause—strangely heavy, and at the same time, curiously, not unexpectedly so.

"Alvarez," O'Reily finally says, voice all strange, "it's…"

"A fucking tiny shell," Miguel interrupts, feeling like his skin's not quite his own anymore. "All gray too, 'cept if you look inside," he half-grins, trying to shake the weirdness. "I know."

O'Reily peels his gaze away from it to glance up at him with his face carefully blank—but his eyes are strange too.

"But it's more than that, y'know?" Miguel continues quietly, not quite a question.

The strangeness in O'Reily's eyes _shimmers_. Miguel's suddenly thinking of rain on too-quiet waters, endless lonely darkness underneath, longing for sunlight with quiet, resigned desperation—and he knows O'Reily _knows_.

He wants to say something anyway—really _explain_. About the sun and the ocean and the endless stretch of sandy beach, the waves and the wind and the little sliver of moon and the stars and the kind of freedom you carry with you despite it all. But words are never enough for things that really matter.

"Just…don't let anyone crush it," he finds himself all-but-whispering instead. "Or I swear I'll come back to haunt you," he adds jokingly, trying to defuse things—wishing those ocean-green eyes would blink already.

O'Reily blinks, finally, little half-smile tugging on one side of his lips, gaze dropping back to the tiny shell as his palm closes gently over it—handling it with the same careful, awed reverence Miguel himself was treating it with. Miguel sees his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, sees those lips part as O'Reily takes a deeper breath. Not quite consciously, Miguel breathes with him.

Those lips curve back into something that could very nearly be a smirk again, if the edges were harder or sharper, and O'Reily's voice only has a pale shadow of that strangeness left in it when he says: "You'd make a fucking sorry ghost, Alvarez."

"Nah," Miguel shoots back with his best cocky grin, "I'll haunt the absolute _shit_ out of Guerra!"

O'Reily laughs with him. Miguel thinks of sunny green oceans and soaks up the warmth like some kind of starved sponge, hoarding it greedily.

*

O'Reily isn't the only one who knows how to keep an ear out for all the shit that goes on in this place: Miguel's taken a page out of the guy's book as soon as he realized he was completely on his own—that he'll be _better off_ completely on his own. He's figured that if O'Reily could have survived mostly like that, that first year before the riot, then he sure as fuck can. Especially since he's planning to avoid as much trouble as he can, instead of playing every damn side against each other like O'Reily had been doing (and very likely still is).

Mahatma fucking Gandhi. That's him. (More or less—he's working on it.)

But that doesn't mean he's not gonna keep track of as much shit as he can. He's neutral, not _blind_.

Even if he _is_ stupid to have trusted Guerra.

*

So here's the thing: he's known for a while the rumor mill had it that Morales owed O'Reily one. Didn't think much about it either, 'cause that's none of his concern, right?

But he doesn't believe in coincidences. He doesn't believe he's made that much of an impression on the new leader of El Norte either (what with getting headbutted and punched by scrawny old man Giles right after warning Morales off, wasn't that just fucking stupid, huh, Alvarez?)—definitely not enough to have the guy personally guarantee to Miguel's face that his old compadres won't be gunning for him from now on. No way Guerra nearly fucking killing him has evened things out that much: Miguel killed Ricardo and Vasquez, after all. One failed attempt on his life and his promise to not retaliate don't make up for two dead El Norte men.

And for that sudden good will to be waiting for him when he gets out of the infirmary? When he basically bequeathed to O'Reily that shell-that's-more-than-a-shell on the same fucking day he got the _brilliant_ idea of offering Guerra a free shot at him?

Too much of a fucking coincidence. And Miguel not only doesn't believe in coincidences, but he also thinks if there's such things at all, they definitely wouldn't exist around anything that even _slightly_ concerns Oz's master schemer.

He lets it sit a few days, and then subtly asks around. (Yes, he _can_ be subtle. He's taken a page out of O'Reily's book, hasn't he? Granted, O'Reily would never have been stupid enough to ask Guerra to shank him, much less actually trust that the bastard _wouldn't_ take the opportunity to try and kill him.) And the rumor mill answers: O'Reily was talking to Morales a few days ago, maybe he cashed it in.

Like all the shit you hear in here, it might be true, or it might not be: Miguel's aware he'll never know for sure. Even—or more probably: _especially_ —if he asked O'Reily himself. 'Cause really: O'Reily telling the truth when confronted for it? You might as well ask the devil to play nice.

*

Some more days later though, when he finds himself playing chess against O'Reily, with Cyril fidgeting in obvious boredom next to the devious Irishman, he decides to see if he can sort-of-check his theory anyway. Why not? It'll pass the time, and it's not like he has much to loose.

So, tone and body language carefully relaxed, as he moves one of his knights, he says, like it's just a passing thought: "Morales's apparently decided to keep Guerra on a tighter leash—swears he won't try to bite my heels no more. Ain't that weirdly generous of him," he adds, drawling the words in amused sarcasm.

"Maybe he's been possessed by Santa or something," O'Reily smoothly shoots back, just as casual, already capturing the newly-moved piece.

Which could be an admission just as easily as it could _not_ be. Miguel nearly snorts in sudden laughter anyway at the image it gives him: Ryan O'Reily, playing Santa. Delivering gifts than aren't shit, death, or some form of permanent impairment. Isn't _that_ a mind-boggling thought. (The mick wouldn't even need to slide down chimneys, Miguel thinks, inwardly snickering a bit insanely while doing his best to keep his face straight: O'Reily could just con or charm his way to just about anyone's front door, with or without a stupid costume and fake white beard.)

"It's Christmas?" Cyril wonders, looking at O'Reily with a confused frown.

O'Reily just looks at Miguel, his poker face cracking a little with amusement. (He hasn't shared his gift with his brother, Miguel realizes, though without much surprise: O'Reily hoards things-that-are-more-than-things too, Miguel knows—having stolen the doc's stethoscope for him a lifetime ago—and Cyril doesn't have the brain capacity to understand. And with all that man-strength the kid doesn't control, he could accidentally end up crushing something as delicate as a tiny shell far too easily.)

"The spirit of Christmas doesn't have to be limited to the season," Miguel says indolently, studying the board and moving his rook—unable to suppress a crooked grin.

Cyril looks even more confused. O'Reily grins back a little and lazily takes Miguel's queen. Of course.

"Can we have presents, Ryan?" Cyril asks, obviously as it occurs to him—sitting up straight with his eyes shining and all.

O'Reily has an actual _oh shit_ expression on his face for a second, before he smoothes it down. "Sure," he answers, "how about a big candy bar? But you gotta promise not to tell anyone else it's Christmas."

"I promise," the kid declares solemnly, in complete contrast with his enthusiastic nod. "Can it be chocolate peanut-butter with hazelnuts?"

"If you're good," O'Reily replies with a grin, eyeing the board as Miguel captures his second bishop, getting closer to the guy's king.

"I am good," is the slightly-indignant response.

"Then you'll get your candy bar," O'Reily shoots back, smile fondly amused.

There's a short pause as they both study the board, and Cyril grins happily, probably thinking about his upcoming present. O'Reily attacks Miguel's king with his queen in retaliation, and Miguel is forced to move it away.

Then: "What do you want for Christmas, Miguel?" Cyril asks.

Miguel eyes O'Reily for a second or two. O'Reily looks back, face carefully impassive. "I already got what I want," Miguel answers, staring straight at him. Those green eyes look a bit wary.

"What is it?" Cyril immediately questions, all childish curiosity leaning toward him. O'Reily, however, doesn't even _twitch_.

"My life," Miguel answers the kid, finally breaking the staring contest to grin crookedly at the board.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Cyril's nose scrunch up in confusion. O'Reily is still holding up his poker face, but it doesn't matter anymore: his complete lack of any sort of reaction is just as good as an admission. Miguel'll still never be _sure_ , but he's got a pretty good hunch he's right.

"What about you, Ryan?" Cyril asks his brother, apparently giving up on trying to understand Miguel.

"Ah, I'll have a candy bar too," O'Reily answers, smooth and easy, finally focusing back on the board. His carefully blank face has cracked into a smile—a real, nice-looking one.

Miguel's indirectly grinning back before he can help it—thinking of sunny green oceans again, and clear blue sky, and the almost-tangible memory of actually _being warm_.

O'Reily checkmates him with that smile turning into a bright grin, green eyes full of laughter. Of fucking course.

*

It's a good thing, Miguel thinks afterwards, that _he_ knows as well that his shell wasn't just a shell. Otherwise, he'd be bitterly thinking that it fucking figures, that his life is worth no more than the tiny gray carcass of a dead sea mollusk.

As it is, he's just amused that Ryan fucking O'Reily _has_ apparently been playing Secret Santa—and off-season, too. And though he knows he can't ever actually say _thank you_ to its sender, what he's somehow just gotten is sure one gift he's never planning to let anyone crush either.


End file.
